Recording of aerospace executive's speech leads to his resignation the next day
qz.com
qz.com
He was candid with the wrong audience, that's all.
What I heard was a completely benign, candid analysis of the situation.
You're quite correct.
not supposed to say the truth ... supposed to pretend
But in the above you're missing a key word in two places:
not supposed to publicly say the truth ... supposed to publicly pretend
And that is the essence of the problem. Any business that wants to survive must have ongoing internal discussions based on reality. However, their public face should necessarily be quite different. This was explained in Bull Durham:
Crash Davis: It's time to work on your interviews.
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: My interviews? What do I gotta do?
Crash Davis: You're gonna have to learn your clichés.
You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to
know them. They're your friends. Write this down:
"We gotta play it one day at a time."
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: Got to play... it's pretty boring.
Crash Davis: 'Course it's boring, that's the point.
Write it down.This is covered in V. Rao's "The Gervais Principle", specifically the section on "Powertalk" http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-i...
My engineer Loser brain is about to explode. Those are secrets of management Sociopaths. It's anathema to me, but maybe I'm just Clueless. :)
It just never gets recorded.
I wouldn't have even noticed it. I'd never have used the terms he used, but I don't have any real issue with the way it was framed.
I find it odd that would be the thing to pick out within the statements, but perhaps I'm not as sensitive to the language as I should be?
Edit: I can't seem to reply to a level deep, so I will put some remarks here.
Re: over - In my view it was just an analogy, and had no deep insight into the views of marriage. Just my impressions
Re: th0ma5 - Boys doesn't have any negative connotation, but I understand the point you're making. I don't have much to add except that I didn't read it as anything other than an analogy.
Re: zepto - I keep saying bar because that's often where you'll hear this sort of language, but it isn't limited there. I respect your views that it isn't appropriate, and again, I would never use that language to explain it.
But I don't take offense to it. Again, perhaps I should. I may not be as enlightened as I should be.
But then again, it does reflect a lot of marriage decisions, particularly in high society, so it's probably appropriate. This is actually what happens when personal life starts to look like business life. So probably... better not to be so brazen about it because it's a bit chauvinistic. Honesty isn't always the best policy, sometimes you have to consider people's feelings and reactions.
The problem comes when an executive is speaking on the record in the way he would speak off the record.
“The government was not happy with us not bidding that, because they bent over backwards to lean the field to our advantage,”
This is a serious accusation (corruption) and shouldn't be taken lightly and the upper management has every right to fire him for that. Other than that, it's just a harmless case of "drunk words/sober thoughts".
I think the point is that they're all like that, or at least a lot of them. This guy isn't any more of an asshole than anyone else in his position is likely to be. He's not more honest, either--laudable honesty lies in telling the truth even when you know it could hurt you, and it sounds like he somehow honestly hadn't realized that. He's just stupider, or at least more tone-deaf. (Or possibly drunk/high/otherwise impaired. It's hard to imagine a man getting as far as he did without developing a solid understanding of when you're expected to lie.)
He's telling folks outside the company that a) ULA is courting Aerojet Rocketdyne with little intention of actually going with them, b) a prominent Senator is biased against them and and c) the Pentagon skewed a competition in their favor.
As the article says:
> This is not something Air Force procurement officers want to see quoted in the next SpaceX lawsuit. Nor is it something that McCain was happy to hear. At a hearing this morning, he called for an investigation into the contract.
Do I fell sorry for his firing--no.
Would I tape this speach, and put it online--no.
Anyone got anything on the motivation for the taping/putting on-line?
Lutz? Angry at the language? Supporting one of the other stakeholders? Some concept of investigative journalism?
People don't like assholes, which is why smart assholes take care not to act like assholes. When you're this obvious about it, no one can fail to notice what an asshole you are. When you piss someone off and simultaneously hand them a way to hurt you, you shouldn't be surprised when they take it.
My opinion is lower than that. Generation Text posts everything as a reflex without much thought.
Only later when things happen like the cops showing up at their doorstep do they realize that maybe that isn't such a great idea.
I don't have any issue with taping and releasing a speech during a class at a publicly funded university.
This is likely because of a requirement that ULA put out a bid to multiple candidates. This sort of thing often happens because of well-meaning rules that aim to prevent croneyism in subcontracts or procurement. It's unsurprising, and -assuming that there's no other US supplier that is willing to build the engines for ULA- is not at all controversial.
However, such rules can be a pain in the ass when you honestly know that there's only one entity in the world who can do the entirety of the thing that you need to get done. If you're really unlucky, your procurement rules will be written so that some bozo can come along, promise everything on your requirements list at a lower price than the only guy who can actually do the job, win the contract, and string you along for aeons while they attempt to build the capabilities that they promised they could supply, and that the other guy already had ready to go.
I'm just putting the situation into perspective for the folks who might hold an opinion like "That's such a terrible thing for ULA to be doing! Why are they wasting the time and money of Aerojet if they seriously expect that Aerojet won't be able to provide the thing that they need?".
It's a bit like Trump. A lot of people say they admire him because he speaks his mind. Well, that's not so great if the underlying mind is nuts!
You break it down into overly simplistic, but generally useful ways to explain the situations. I don't doubt his candid explanation was correct, and I don't see anything wrong with it really.
It's the internal analysis of the situation at a given time. Those things change, and are not written in stone.
Why wouldn't you doubt this? His speech included a number of factually incorrect engineering statements about his competitors (SpaceX). If he was being "honest", then he was wrong. His "candid explanations" of things were fraught with error and also wildly offensive, not to mention dangerous for the business.
In this vertical, I don't know if he was wrong or right in the detail of his analysis.
What was the offensive part?
Such as ... ?
ULA faces a big threat from SpaceX right now. If SpaceX's reusability plans work out, if SpaceX can get their reliability up, and if SpaceX can work on their delays and start launching on time, ULA is going to be in a world of hurt. They had a long time as a sole-source launch provider for the government, and suddenly they're being undercut by a factor of five which could soon turn into a factor of ten or fifteen. Now, that's a lot of "ifs" up there, but ULA can't be complacent if they want to still exist in a decade or two.
If I was the CEO of ULA, I'd want my upper management to consist of people who understand this situation, who recognize the threat, who take it seriously, and who will work to keep ULA competitive as they go from having guaranteed business to needing to fight for every launch contract. And this fellow does not sound like he fits that description in the least.
If you take any company, and ask all of the VPs about their candid take about the tactics of their current situation, you will get a tremendous amount of variety on their perceived views of the situation.
As to if that aligns with the CEO's vision, I don't know. And his firing is not an indication either way, because he would be fired regardless for his indiscretion.
If you believe he is factually incorrect in the specifics of his analysis, I don't doubt you, and I'm not defending it.
“Along came Elon Musk and changed the game completely…we can’t afford [to bid] any more because the price points are coming down as low as $60 million,” he said. “The best day you’ll see us bid at $125 million or twice that number. Add in the capabilities cost, it eclipses the $200 million. … So now we’re going to have to take and figure out how to bid these things much lower cost. The government can’t just say, you know, ULA’s got a great track record, they’ve done 100 launches.”
What are you referring to?
Really, the fuel thing sticks out at me. Maybe I'm making too big of a deal about it, but reuse is going to be very important, ULA is working on their own version of it (recovering just the engines, not the entire first stage), and he ought to know about it. Or if he doesn't, because details are for underlings, he ought to know what he doesn't know about it.
He made no estimate of that and didn't mention SES-9. What are you reading? Is that in the original audio recording because it's not in the article.
His criticism was that "it requires flying additional fuel to perform the landing", which I interpreted to be about weight and not fuel cost, and that ULA's plan is to parachute the rockets down, I assume to minimize that problem. Do you have information that contradicts him?
Where is this coming from? [Deleted last sentence]
What matters is how much you can put into orbit. RTLS hits you with a 30% payload penalty, a normal barge landing is about a 15% penalty, and a crazy hail-Mary attempt like SES-9 is somewhat less.
If your payload is under that threshold then the only downside to it is the extra cost of fuel and support. Both are completely minimal. For example, SpaceX's next ISS supply mission has plenty of margin for an RTLS landing. A Dragon stuffed full of cargo still weighs less than what Falcon 9 can put into the ISS's orbit and land back at the launch site afterwards. For a little bit of extra fuel, you can potentially save a rocket stage worth tens of millions. That doesn't sound dump to me.
For those few payloads that can't tolerate that penalty, they can fly the rocket expendable. It's still one of the cheapest out there even if they don't recover it. Or they can fly it on Falcon Heavy, which if recovered is cheaper than an expandable Falcon 9.
The only big unknown right now is the cost of refurbishing a recovered first stage so it can be ready for another launch. That's what made the Space Shuttle cost so much more than it was supposed to. It sounds good so far, but until they're doing this on a regular basis we can't know for sure.
They're just being frank and open about the train thoughts in their head but this doesn't mean that these thoughts are valid, true or sound.
IMO Most of what he said was widely thought by others, but not previously confirmed by ULA.
[0] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487041411045755886...
Especially when you're a C-level executive of a major corporation, there are certain things you just don't ever discuss frankly other than behind closed doors with a very select audience. Even if this hadn't been recorded, it would have been felony stupid to say those things to that audience. The consequences are entirely predictable and well-deserved.
I agree with everything except this statement. It's discussed without closed doors, and without a select audience all the time. It's actually quite wide and open for this kind of thing, which is likely how he made the error.
He's so used to communicating in this way, he didn't realize that he needed to dramatically change his content for this particular audience.
Most of what he said (and especially the stuff that people were angry about) is, in fact, common knowledge. ULA can't compete on price, the trade restrictions on Russian engines are politically motivated, most of the funding decisions are made by congress explicitly to funnel spending to their districts, and the procurement process is utterly broken.
And you can find industry experts and analysts who say all of this repeatedly and noisily. But if you're speaking for one of the players, obviously you're not allowed to admit any of it.
The biggest gaffe he made was the audience. He felt he could candidly discuss the topics with students from his alma mater. He learned that was absolutely the wrong move.
He should have been fired, simply because he didn't understand the audience.
You heard the candid opinion of a man at a given point of time. It doesn't mean he's unsuitable for his position.
What makes him unsuitable for his position is that he thought he could discuss it with students.
The tenor and his thoughts I've heard from all sorts of businesses with relevant detail in their fields. This is an accurate portrayal of all of those conversations.
Being wrong is a constant in complex situations, and what matters is correcting and moving on.
If we take just the last year, I've been wrong a breathtaking amount of time, as has everyone else I've ever discussed with. It happens, and you're constantly trying to move yourself closer to truth.
What is the correct amount of fuel used to make the landing attempt? I just googled and didn't quickly find it, though I did find this speculation at StackExchange[0] talking about reserving 15% of the fuel, or 66 tons, for the landing. 66 tons is 132,000 pounds, so 100,000 pounds seems a reasonable rounding - what am I missing? (I don't know anything about rockets.)
[0] http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/4466/how-is-spacex-...
The amount of fuel used varies a lot, because they can land in different places. At one extreme, you have a landing at the launch site, which uses the most fuel in order to get the first stage turned around and coming back. Barge landings use less fuel, because they can be positioned under the flight path so the rocket doesn't have to maneuver as much.
SES-9 was at the other extreme. It reserved the bare minimum of fuel for the landing attempt because of its heavy, high-performance payload. That meant no maneuvering boostback burn, no or minimal reentry burn, and the landing burn itself was done with three engines instead of the typical one. That saves fuel because the rocket decelerates faster and spends less time fighting gravity, but of course the control challenge is magnified, which is probably why it went all explodey.
Putting some numbers on it, I found some estimates here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2vuy1v/how_much_fue...
According to that, landing at the launch site would require about 38 tons of fuel, and a (normal) barge landing would require about 20 tons. SES-9's barge landing would have been even less.
I believe the 15% from your StackExchange link is confused, and someone mistook the payload penalty (about 15% for a barge landing) for the amount of fuel required.
In any case, the fuel is cheap relative to everything else so as long as they can put the payload on orbit expending almost any amount of fuel to recover the rocket is perfectly reasonable. Not sure why the ULA guy thought spending 100,000 of fuel to recover a 15 million dollar core would be a bad thing.
And yeah, even if it was 100,000 pounds, what's the point?
"ULA did not seriously consider Aeroject-Rocketdyne bid"[1]
ULA's problems with using Russian engines are well known.[2]
ULA's cost-competitiveness comes from a bulk buy deal with the USAF.[3]
None of this is surprising.
ULA's big problems are cost and dependence on Russian engines. Space-X's big problem is that they keep having launch delays and can't launch often enough. They're about a year behind schedule and no longer even publish a projected launch manifest with dates. They have angry customers whose launch schedules are not being met.[4]
[1] http://aviationweek.com/space/ula-did-not-seriously-consider... [2] http://aviationweek.com/space/usaf-cost-rd-180-termination-u... [3] http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/boosters_bits/2014/05... [4] http://spacenews.com/delays-in-spacex-falcon-9-upgrade-sched...
Some story is posted which has both political element and a non-political element, and the comments focus entirely on the political side.
Case in point: Spike Lee posts his movie list. Roughly 5% of the comment thread is dedicated to talking about the movies. 95% of the thread is about how terrible it was for people to criticize Spike Lee for not including any female directors.
Here: there's lots of fascinating discussion to be had about the current state of the space launch industry, how legacy players will respond to upstarts, rocket reusability, etc. But the whole discussion is about how terrible it was that this guy was fired for what he said.
Could everybody cut it out? It's annoying!
Was surprised the executive would be this candid and never imagined it would spread this fast!
Enjoy your milquetoast.